Love Poem: Epigrams Vi
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Written by: Michael Burch

Epigrams Vi

Epigrams VI

These are humorous epigrams including a form I call "Less Heroic Couplets." 



Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch
 
When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe distance
let me admire your persistence.



Less Heroic Couplets: Less than Impressed
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M., regarding certain dispensers of lukewarm air

Their volume's impressive, it's true...
but somehow it all seems 'much ado.'



Less Heroic Couplets: Crop Duster
by Michael R. Burch 

We are dust and to dust we must return ...
but why, then, life’s pointless sojourn?



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch
 
I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.



The Trouble with Elephants: a Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch 

An elephant NEVER forgets,
which is why they don’t make the best pets:
Jumbo may well out-live you,
but he’ll NEVER forgive you
so you may as well save your regrets!



The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch
 
Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found exposed on the cover
of some patronizing lover.
 
In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.



Paradoxical Ode to Antinatalism
by Michael R. Burch 

A stay on love 
would end death’s hateful sway,
someday.

A stay on love 
would thus BE love,
I say.

Be true to love
and thus end death’s
fell sway!


Native American Prayer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Help us learn the lessons you have left us here
in every leaf and rock.



"Lu Zhai" ("Deer Park")
by Wang Wei (699-759)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Uninhabited hills ...
except that now and again the silence is broken
by something like the sound of distant voices
as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ...

Wang Wei was a Chinese poet, musician, painter, and politician during the Tang dynasty with 29 poems in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. 

Keywords: epigram, epigrams, couplet, couplets, touch, touching, life, death, love, kiss, kissing, hot air, volume, animal, animals, pets, elephants, lamb, lambs, sleep, dream, counting sheep, birth, procreation, antinatalism